There has been no news on where in southern Lebanon the 30,000 Israeli ground troops are deployed. I think the following deployment is likely. They are likely deployed in an box like formation About a quarter of the troops are deployed along the Mediterranean Sea; About a quarter along the south side of the the river that runs across the northern part of Southern Lebanon; About a quarter are places along the Syrian border; and about a quarter are placed along the Israeli border. There are no Israeli troops in the interior of the box.
This force deployment has several advantages all means of escape and resupply to the Hezbollah in southern Lebanon are blocked. If a large portion of Hezbollah are trapped in this box they must sooner or later attack to get food or starve to death.
It is one thing to be a defensive force. Hezbollah has trained extensively on defensive strategies. They can hide in holes and tunnels and come out to kill Israeli Troops. They can fire rockets and missiles. But they have not the force size or the weapons to conduct an offensive war.
The situation is reversed. It is Hezbollah who must attack and they have little or no skills in this area. The IDF gets to play defense. But the IDF has 30,000 troops. And it takes 3 times as many troops to attack as it does to defend. But Hezbollah has 1/24 the number of troops to make a successful attacking force.
Sooner or later Hezbollah will get so hungry they must either surrender or attack. Their supplies of ammunition will be limited. The routes of resupply are closed. They have to go through a huge Israeli force to get supplies... They must attack with out enough forces or the right kind of weapons to successfully attack.
There is no way to resupply. Not from the north.. there are Israeli troops. Not from the south, the east or west. They are surrounded.
If I am right, the Members of the potential UN peace keeping force will keep saying to each other.... you first .. no you first ... for a month or two. The Lebanese army will just sits on its rump waiting to hold a meeting. While that is going on Israel can kill and disarm a huge amount of Hezbollah. All of it in southern Lebanon.
The most likely strategy for Hezbollah would be to try to attack from the north across the river. To make a whole from which at least some of their forces could escape. But that is not likely to result in anthing except more Hezbollah deaths.
I would expect that Israel will not allow any reporters inside this box. And I suspect that few if any reporters get too far from from the capital of Lebanon. It may be a while before we know exactly what is taking place. But getting supplies from Syria... is only useful if Hezbollah choses to attack.
It the next few days may not be as disasterous as we might have thought at first glance.
Thanks. Your scenario sounds smart, likely and reasonable. I just can't shake the sense that there is always much going on beneath the diplomacy. What we see is merely window dressing.
I have to say that it amuses me to no end that people think the President and his team don't "really understand" the nature of "fascist Islam."
Sounds good! .....
One thing I'd like to add to your scenario.....Occasionally when Hexbolla troops get low in numbers allow a few more in so they can receive the same treatment as those they are replacing.
Well. It seems there are a few intelligent, open-minded, forward looking people left on FR.
I can't believe the crop of doomsayers, and "Olmert is a failure".
They are worse than the DEMS and DU during Bush's opening months in Iraq.